Page:Francesca Carrara 3.pdf/8

Rh they are true? and that they are true, I attest the sympathy of others and my own experience. If I have just painted a state of moral lassitude, when the heart is left like a ruined and deserted city, where the winged step of joy, and the seven-stringed lute of hope, have ceased each to echo the other; where happiness lies cold and dead on its own threshold; where dust lies dry and arid over all, and there is no sign of vegetation, no promise of change—if I paint such a state, it is because I know it well. Alas! over how many things now does my regret take its last and deepest tone—despondency! I regret not the pleasures that have passed, but that I have no longer any relish for them. I remember so much which but a little while ago would have made my heart beat with delight, and which I now think even tiresome. The society which once excited, is now wearisome—the book which would have been a fairy-gift to my solitude, I can now scarcely read. So much for the real world; and as for the imaginary world, I have overworked my golden vein. Some of the ore has been fashioned into fantastic, perhaps beautiful, shapes; but they are now for others, and not for me! Once, a sweet face, a favourite flower, a thought of sorrow, touched every pulse with music. Now, half my time, my mood is too